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So, it's well known that many NASA scientists and whatnot are major Trek fans, most of which claim they were inspired by the show and it's ideals to seek out their scientific careers. Obviously, most if not all of these people would have been inspired during the reign of Kirk's people from '66 and onward. As the years tick by, no doubt many held wonder as to when the Star Wars generation would get ahold of the internal workings of NASA. Well, today is that day. Or rather, tomorrow is that day. NASA will be attacking the moon, or "space station" as they most likely believed in order to go ahead with this.

I do have a question burning in my head about this, though. Is it possible that this detonation on the moon will be able to give them info on the effectiveness of missiles for incoming asteroids?

Off hand I would say no. If you're going to blow up an asteroid you're going to first have to know how it's made. Asteroids (and comets) are thought to be anything from loose material weakly held together be gravity to more solid chucks of rock. The rubble pile will react very different from the large solid rock. The large asteroids like Vesta or Pallas are more likely tightly bound together. The Earth killer sized ones the thought be the rubble pile type. The type the leave meteorites are going to be more large rocks in space.

The Moon is solid body held together tightly itself own gravity. While the raw material might similar, it's a about the same using Earth based explosion to judge the effective on asteroids. NASA's Deep Impact mission would be (and was) much more useful in terms of how to deal with Earth-killer asteroids.

"I'm sick and tried of these motherfrakkking Sith on this motherfrakkker plane!"
Mace Windu - Episode 2.5: Sith on a Plane

Look! Up in the sky! (No...It's not Jets&Heels....)

Time for the Leonid Meteor Showers tonight, kiddies!

For the US: best viewing will be for the East Coasters from 1AM 'til dawn. Viewing best pretty much 90º straight up for you. Left Coasters will have to look to the lower Eastern horizon for their (my) views; again beginning about 1AM our time. The Moon won't be a factor as it will be in its new phase. This will be an average year for us....only about 20-30 displays per hour. If you want the best show, you'll have to get yourself to Asia post-haste! Domo arigato Mr. Roboto...

Interesting bookends: today is the 42th anniversary of The Eagle leaving the moon after its monumental first landing in 1969, while the space shuttle lands after its inexcuseably LAST mission. But on a positive note, reportedly, the shuttle will be on display at the CA ScienCenter here in SoCal eventually.

I'm super crabby that they killed the shuttle without any sort of replacement programme in place. They keep talking about how the next incarnation of space travel will be left to private corporations and, while I get that, they will be the ones making deliveries to the ISS and such.

Did you know that, at present, it costs $10,000 to deliver 1 pound of coffee to the ISS?

I woke up this morning (sounds like a blues song intro) and noticed the moon looked different from its almost-full size the last couple days. Then I remembered... eclipse! Threepio says, "they're mad men, because "luna" (moon) gave us "lunatic! If you hurry you might catch it!" Check it out if you can, west coasters!